Sorry about this but I am back on the issue of Northern Rail and their frankly useless service on the Furness and Lakes Lines.

I’d like to say that there has been progress on this issue over the three weeks since I last wrote about it here.

Actually you could argue that something has been achieved because at least the government appears to have noticed there is an issue. We have even had the prime minister saying that the service problems are “unacceptable”.

But to say that anything has happened and that there has been progress is, I’m afraid, a step too far. When I raised the issue with Chris Grayling in the House of Commons many weeks ago he claimed I was shooting at the wrong target and that Network Rail was the company to blame for all the delays and cancellations.

Now at least he is aware that there have been failings with more or less everyone involved since the new franchise was awarded by his department to Northern Rail back in 2018.

He has even announced an inquiry into the service that Northern has been providing so hopefully he is starting to appreciate who the target for criticism really should be.

But we are entering into the key time of year for visitors to the Lakes, our children are in the middle of massively important GCSE and A-Level exams and what has Northern done? It has got agreement from the minister to cancel all of its trains on the Lakes Line until the end of June.

The other day he promised me that this suspension of service would be the end of the matter and that there would be no further suspensions. But Northern have already asked if they can extend it for a further couple of weeks.

So we are about to see how much we can trust Mr Grayling to keep his word. Sadly, his performance to date doesn’t fill me with confidence let’s look at a few examples.

He cancelled the electrification of the Lakes Line but promised a much-improved service. I can’t say we have seen that. His original plans for the national road network did not recognise that the A591, the main artery through the middle of the Lake District was even a “major road”.

The boss of Network Rail, the organisation that Mr Grayling originally felt was responsible for this mess was even given a CBE in the last round of honours.

I could go on but I think you get the point. I am becoming increasingly convinced that what we are seeing here is yet another minister in this government who is an MP for a London suburb and who simply does not care about what goes on in our part of the world.

He certainly gives all the appearances of not bothering to find out. It’s just under a year since we won World Heritage Status, at the very least we deserve a train service that helps visitors to see why we achieved that accolade.